“We work hard to create a community everyone can enjoy and which also enables people to express different opinions,” a YouTube spokeswoman said in a statement. “This can be a challenge because what's OK in one country can be offensive elsewhere. This video — which is widely available on the Web — is clearly within our guidelines and so will stay on YouTube.”

Thanks to Google, a corporation, with stronger free-speech values than the United States government is willing to support.

We were hoping to include Sherly Sandeberg as the Sec. of Treasury in the 2nd term. Now, we will not do so. We were hoping to consider S. Brin as Sec. of Commerce. We will not do so. When you are in the Obama orbit, you have to support the WH. This will not be tolerated. Read Price of Politics by Woodward and see that we will not be disobeyed. Forget you, Google. We are heading to using Bing from MS now.

Where is Axe? Get Seattle on the line. Get the Hughes guy from FB now at TNR to work with Microsoft now.

After this week, with skipped intel briefings, a sodomized and murdered ambassador, dead Navy SEaLs, refusing to meet with Netanyahu while meeting with the head of the Muslim brotherhood, attending a fundraiser at Beyonce's, apologizing to terrorists, blaming the attacks on a video...anyone who is even THINKING of voting for Obama in November is, to put it bluntly, an idiot.

Thank God somebody believes in free speech. Obama, Hillary and the other shitheads in his administration don't consider freedom of speech that important. And, freedom of religion, along with "respect" for religious beliefs, only matter when radical Muslims are involved.

Obama has no respect for the Constitution, especially the Bill of Rights, considers himself to have dictatorial powers and cares not what harm he does to country as long as he remains the Exalted One.

Thanks to Google, a corporation, with stronger free-speech values than the United States government is willing to support.

Agreed, I must say I'm surprised and impressed by Google's decision here. Bravo.

If there's to be any hope that other cultures might someday come to understand what the principle of free speech is all about, then we must stand by that principle and those values-- with pride, not cringing shame.

This one has been bugging me all day and maybe it's been answered plainly and I've just not yet gotten caught up...but how could they have sodomized him if he had already died from suffocating? Unless the rumors about this are suggesting necrophilia?

Remember shortly after 9/11, Bill Maher made some comments that lots of people thought were rude? In a press briefing, Ari Fleischer suggested that people ought to "be careful" when they spoke. Well, you'd have thought that W himself retooled the Alien and Sedition Acts. The left was outraged. Now, their guy uses the power of the US government to 1) "Suggest" that YouTube take the video down and 2) Have the DOJ investigate the crackpot who made a film for no reason other than the fact that a bunch of radical savages rioted.

I remember back, quite awhile ago now, when the "liberals" would say "If you don't like something," turn it off."

Not anymore. They have no trouble shutting you up if you interfere with their quest for power.

When you're hiding behind the video (instead of admitting maybe your policies and your bragging about killing Osama could be at fault) what choice do you have but to ask Google to take down the video? Surprised they didn't. Be more surprised if they don't pay for their decision.

I for one hated all of those fucks in the State Dept. anyway. I'm glad, fucking glad, that Obama feels the same way.

Guess what, you fucking LBGT Queer fucking assholes? Obama is happy to post you to the Middle East becaue he will be sure to leave you defenseless, with Marines with NO AMMO, with orders not to fire, while you get strangled and killed.

That is what Obama wants for you. Hope and change? He's killing you and you cheer for him. Be ashamed.

The fact that the administration continues to take this absurd pretext at face value indicates that they're not only craven, but stupid as well.

I don't know that the administration takes it at face value; but they certainly want the American people to do so.

Thing is, that video serves as a pretext (in a different way) as much for the O admin as it does for the protesters, maybe more. Of course it's useful to the O admin to focus media attention and pin the blame on an obscure little amateurish ridiculous youtube video. All those stormed embassies, fires, burned flags, murders, etc.-- it's about an obscure little youtube video. It's has nothing to with anger directed at America itself-- and much less, Obama!

That little video and it alone is to blame for people getting killed. What lack of reasonable precaution/ prevention? What Obama policies? Look over there-- that's the bad guy, someone should get him.

but how could they have sodomized him if he had already died from suffocating?

Why do you think he was already dead of suffocating?

As the New York Times reports, "State Department officials have said they do not know Mr. Stevens’s whereabouts during the battle, who took him to the hospital or who carried his body to the airport and into United States custody."

The claim that he died in the consulate is entirely without any evidence. All the State Department knows, there was an attack on the consulate, and rather later Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens was delivered to the airport a corpse by unknown persons.

Now, the Libyan witness reports, as published in the New York Times, are that he was dragged out of a room in the consulate through a broken window, and at some later point wound up in the hospital, where the people in the hospital say they tried to save his life, including 45 minutes of resuscitation.

That certainly doesn't sound like he was already dead when he was taken into the hospital, does it? How often does a guy arrive already dead at the hospital, and medical personnel try to bring him back to life for at least three-quarters of an hour?

Obviously, the Libyans may be lying . . . but in that case, we don't have any idea when he died at all.

Good for Google. Does anyone in their right mind actually believe that this violence has anything to do with this film? Of course not. Islamist violence springs from the nature of their goals and ideology, not from the grievance of the day. The alleged grievance de jure is always just a pretext and never a cause of anything. (Think back to the Dutch cartoon affair or the Rushdie affair). That Obama seemingly believes that any of this violence is about the film betrays a shocking, if not willful, misundertatnding of the extremist mindset. In fact, that is really the game the Obama administration is playing. If they admit the obvious, that this violence is a result of the intrinsically violent nature of Islamic extremism and nothing more, than Obama has to admit that he misread the entire region in giving his Cairo address and in supporting factions such as the Muslim Brotherhood. But if he can convince enough gullible people that concerted attacks on US Embassies on the anniversary of 9/11 are really just a spontaneous reaction to some film, that allows him to go on ignoring the underlying problem. And if that means throwing freedom of expression and the values of our culture under the bus, better that in his mind than acknowledge the continued pathology of the Middle East, an acknowledgement that would invoke responsibilty. And Obama's values seem truly frightening. He refused to support the Green Revolution in Iran, ignores the revolt in Syria, yet had no hesitation in watching Egypt and likely Libya fall to the Islamists. Beyond misrepresenting the region's underlying problems, by apologizing and taking the pretext seriously, the Obama adminstration just empowers the extremists. The whole stance in seeking to remove the film reeks of extraordinary weakness and appeasement. The Islamists literally have the Obama Administration jumping through hoops like fools. And with the contempt this necessarily produces, additional violence is made that much more likely. Just stop and think of all the alternative statements the Obama administration could have made in response to the violence we are winessing. How about: "The US deplores continued efforts by opportunistic extremists to justiify violence and unrest through the familiar mechanism of dredging up some trumped up 'grievance,' knowing full well that the sole purpose of this grievance-mongering is to provide cover for premeditated violence that serves the extremists political goals." I'm sure it could be improved on, but the principle isn't too hard to grasp.Bottom line is that the minute we start sacrificing out freedoms to thugs is the moment they are no longer worth a damn. Obama doesn't seem to care, which speaks volumes about what he thinks about the nation he ostensibly leads.

Had Obama or Hillary even watched the video before they passed judgment on it?

If so, which parts in particular did they find inflammatory or inaccurate?

If not then just what the hell did they think they were doing apologizing for it to a bunch of savages who just dragged the carcass of our ambassador through the streets of Libya? Even if it were defamatory, what the hell were they doing apologizing for it to a bunch of savages who just dragged the carcass of our ambassador through the streets of Libya? Have they no shame?

Who the hell do they think they are taking sides in a religious dispute? Who do they think they are deciding whether or not religions should be mocked or denigrated? Would they care to issue a statement about The Life of Brian?

Why are they trying so hard to find the people who made the film? What do they intend to do once they find them? Are any efforts being made to shield these people and keep their identities from being exposed? By what authority are they seeking these people?

Why did they show more anger at Romney for his simple statement of American values and his criticism of the response to the attack on our soil than they did the murderers? Why does Obama skip his security briefings? Were his consultations with Beyonce' an adequate substitute? How do we know he even bothers to read the security summaries? Why did Hillary choose to have so little security at our embassy? Why does Obama have time to meet with Morsi but not Netanyahu?

Why did they have a high ranking official call some preacher in FL to get him to stop exercising his right to speak his mind? Don't they know that their job is to protect that man's rights? Do they have any idea what perverse incentives it sets up to give concessions to people who attack us? If the Vatican burns our embassy can they get an exemption from Obamacare?

Why aren't Obama and Hillary made to answer any of these questions?

I will admit I have not seen the film myself but the parts I have heard about are not inaccurate --- Mo sexing up a child, spreading Islam by the sword etc... None of that is exactly controversial. The Suras say what they say.

The truly pathetic thing is that apparently the rioters aren't upset so much that Mohammed did these things as they are that he is depicted in film at all. That is the sort of primitive, barbaric mentality that is at work here.

Is the administration aware that Crack's compound is under assault? Could we get some marines over there. If it gets too bad, Crack, issue a statement that you actually respect Mormonism. We'll be praying that you don't get sodomized, but those heathen Mormons don't respect common decency, so just think happy thoughts until it's over. One technique that always worked for me was to just shit my pants. That stops 90% of your sodomizers.

According to what I've read this film cost 5 megabucks. Usually a trailer is intended to "put the best foot forward" so to speak. If the trailer on YouTube for Innocence of the Muslims is this movie's best foot forward, then somebody got ripped a new one on this deal. The whole thing appears to be shot with a cheap camcorder in front of a green screen. The acting is silly, community theatre stuff, and the videography is amateurish in the extreme. Heck, the actors don't even cast shadows on the desert sand that's chromakeyed in. I think I could do a better job with my Nikon D7000 and some bedsheets.

Without the riots, arsons and murders this exercise in stupidity would have died the well-deserved death of obscurity, but now it's going to be view-able somewhere on the web forever.

Is the administration aware that Crack's compound is under assault? Could we get some marines over there.

And that makes a difference to the principle of free speech, how? See, this is what I find so maddening:

You guys change the rules as you see fit.

You have no honor, no values, no cohesive thoughts - it's all relative with you - just NewAge babble.

You can see it this way, or you can see it that, but don't get too comfortable with either because - if we decide we like or don't like somebody - we'll be Democrats and claim it's a "living" whatever and all bets are off.

I swear, conservatives are proving to be as big a bunch of pussies as liberals always claimed they are,...

None of you - or our glorious leaders - has disproved any of this so-called "bigotry" so what makes it so? That you're "calling" it that? Where's the proof? Where's the evidence? Oh right, I forgot - you don't need no stinkin' proof! You can just go around "calling" stuff, and if you're big enough - with enough sycophants - it's a self-fulfilling prophesy:

"Bigotry" is whatever they say it is.

And if the biggest names on the internet decide that nothing said about Mormonism gets sent around the internet - which is pretty much all Ann and Co. do - then what's the net effect but it being censored? Sure, you can say it, but don't expect the lady who thinks Romney is handsome to detail criticism of him herself - or for Glenn Reynolds to advertise it. I ask you:

Has there been ANY serious criticism of Mitt Romney here or on Instapundit?

So what are you engaged in, as you guys pretend to be having a serious discussion of the issues?

No - Mitt Romney is a perfect person who's never done anything to anyone, incapable of lying or even shading the truth, and his cult is a pure religion with absolutely no similarities to Scientology or any other outfit started by a con man in the history of the world.

And if the biggest names on the internet decide that nothing said about Mormonism gets sent around the internet - which is pretty much all Ann and Co. do - then what's the net effect but it being censored?

Jesus H. Christ, Althouse indulges and compliments and headlines and links you, and has never censored or discouraged your copious, virulently anti-Mormon comments on her blog. What a martyr complex.

Crack, no one is saying you CAN'T be a bigot towards mormons, You're just an asshole when you do. And you know what? It IS offensive to call Mohammad a pedophile (even though he was) just as it was offensive to dip a crucifix in urine. IT probably WASN"T a good idea to make an incendiary movie about islam if you want to maintain peace. But the problem with Islam in particular is that unlike all current religions, if you are critical of it, you are likely to get murdered. If someone (like you for example) decide that its your business to expose all Mormons as cult members, well you know, you're probalby an asshole for doing so (especially when you are so lame about it). ANd you can be a bigot about it. That being said, if you do make your statement and then various Mormons decide to go on murder sprees and the first reaction is to demand you not say incendiary things, about mormons, why then the priniciple being argued and defended is different.

I think what the others are trying to say is that you're picking low hanging fruit when you constantly berate western religions, when Islam is probably the biggest offender of civility, and rationalization, in the past...let's just say 2 centuries.

Lord knows I'm more concerned with the muslim in chief we have now than a Romney presidency, and I really can't stand Romney.

I think it telling that only Garage has even attempted to defend Zero and the Hildabeast, if only as a drive by, of the usual suspects of the Society of the Perpetually Aggrieved. I haven't read it yet, but no doubt they are over on the Wisconsin court decision, spiking the football, something we are told only Zero can do properly.

So, it's the anniversary of 9/11. A day many in the Middle East stood and cheered when the towers fell. A day that reminds them of their fallen leader, Osama bin Laden. A day that embodies the struggle with the West, as unmanned drones continue to rain death from the sky.

And the State Dept. & WH think taking down a little video would stop all this rioting nonsense? These people are just looking for an excuse to burn something down with an American flag on it.

Islam, or at least a smaller subset of its adherents, is quite immature. If they can't shake off a cartoon or video, then they've got to grow the fuck up. It's not our problem. It's theirs.

They are rioting because of the date 9/11, and the fact that we are killing them off, using drones. Not to mention, our sheer presence in those countries, if the only presence are the people in the consulate buildings. In short, MadMan, they are killing Americans because they hate us and everything that we stand for.

On another thread, commenter Phx stated that someone who feared Sharia coming to the US had mental health problems. That has stuck in my mind.

The law represented by the federal government has now suggested that a video be removed because at it is viewed as blasphemous under Sharia. I'm sure the official reason is to tamp down violence. But it is a distinction without a difference.

The pretexts are wonderfully mutually supporting. The film is a pretext to commit violence. The violence is a pretext for the west to defacto observe if not formally codify the blasphemy tenets of Sharia.

Sharia may not come to the US, but one is not crazy to speak of it. And those like Phx, who would state that you are, are blind or worse.

Ol'Baracky seeking to have the video removed is just laying ground work for a second term effort at 'Executive Censorship' of the net. He'll wants more 'flexibility' after his last election. Let's exercise that option for him in November.

@Crack I think what the others are trying to say is that you're picking low hanging fruit when you constantly berate western religions, when Islam is probably the biggest offender of civility, and rationalization, in the past...let's just say 2 centuries.

And what is there about Islam you don't know? Every time those idiots kill someone, you guys act like this is news, when it isn't - breaking:

Islamists kill people.

Stop the presses. Meanwhile, NewAge is practically in your blood streams and you act like it's no big deal, no matter how many it kills - and it's HERE. It's in your churches, on your TV screens, in your movies, in your supermarkets, your workplace, the magazines you read. It's the default editorial position of our newspapers, it's pretty much the basis for feminism, environmentalism, and a whole host of other "isms" that we as a society fight (unnecessarily) over daily, but you guys can't be moved to take it seriously - because it would damage your own view of yourselves, as much as attacks on Islam bother Islamists. That's the problem.

NewAge has more to do with the problem we're in - from the all-important economy, you guys are so desperate to get out of, to why Muslims think they can get the better of us - than any other single source, and you think I should focus on Islam, which we could eliminate as our problem tomorrow if we simply got rid of NewAge? It's madness. Lord knows I'm more concerned with the muslim in chief we have now than a Romney presidency, and I really can't stand Romney.

See, look at you:

How is Obama our "muslim in chief" when he was brought to us by Oprah - the "moral authority of the nation"? You guys are lost. Always tripping on Trinity Baptist Church when we all saw that very-public break-up. Obama's been killing Muslims by the barrel-full, but still you insist he's a Muslim - when are you going to reconcile yourself to the fact you've got it wrong? I'll tell you:

Never.

Because once you do, you've then got to come to the realization you're fighting to trade one NewAger (Obama) for another (Romney). So the problem - NewAge - stays the same. Remember my blog slogan:

"America is fighting a belief system:

Defeat the Left and they'll be back.

Defeat NewAge and we're done with them!"

You guys aren't doing that - you're just repeating the problem because Romney shares the same damned belief system. Along with doing things we all want, he's also going to spread this - which, ultimately, won't do a much for our problems because it's a closed-loop, self-defeating system. It's like offering marriage to men who know, under current NewAge laws, any woman can take half your shit - sorry, but they'd rather play video games.

If you guys want to waste your time pointing at the obvious, be my guest, but as long as THAT'S THE PROBLEM YOU WON'T DEAL WITH, it will still be allowed to persist, fester, and grow.

ihasch said...Good for Google. Does anyone in their right mind actually believe that this violence has anything to do with this film? ----------------------Absolutely.The attack on the Ambassador was planned separate..and the film did not cause the riots...Islamists had been planning them it appears for a while.But the film was a glorious tool - as in the Copt gave the Islamists a wonderful anti-American sword and they ran it through us.

We are at war with the Muslim animals and we have to be mindful of what we say or do that can be used against America.Google didn't try to censor it because it has already gone viral and is now downloaded on thousands of radical Islamist flashdrives to use and another arrow in the propaganda quiver.

We get so wrapped up in Sacred Parchment naval-gazing we forget the forest for the trees. No one gives a fuck about our Constitution and it's rights past our Borders.Most nations do have free speech restrictions, think we should as well, and our "cherished free speech" defense means nothing to them, or the people in those nations. In the past, we were a bit smarter and DID have wartime censorship that deterred idiots in America from giving the enemy not just secrets, but propaganda weapons.

We are at war with these Muslim animals and we should be as careful as we were in real big wars not to give the enemy weapons. We had wartime censorship. It was deemed "not a good idea, do it and authorities from Justice and the IRS will be in your movie studio or newspaper offices tomorrow" to release any film, pictures, statements that would just motivate the enemy more.

No one has been stupider about this than the Germans...who fed their enemies incredibly good propaganda tools in the way of photos, movies, recorded speeches and offcial statements that were turned on the Germans. Lacking censorship because they didn't think the pen was mightier than the sword, their troops and the Austro-Hungarian troops as well were undisciplined, did atrocities and stupidly documented those atrocities. Photos the troops took of hanging civilians went to neutral countries and then right into Brit Propaganda ministry hands. The idiot Germans FILMED the execution of Edith Cavell, a nun who had aided wounded Brits get to neutral Holland. The film was not so good, so the Brits reshot most of it, but then released it to the Commonwealth and through America...nun-killing Huns.A private German artist decided to make money by making a medallion of the Lusitania sinking, replete with munitions on the deck going off. But goofed up by making the commemoration May 5th, 1915..two days before the ship was torpedo'd/ Once the Brits got their hands on a copy of the artists's handiwork, they announced it showed the Germans had had the artist make the medal two days before all the Brits and Americans were killed without warning.The Royal Navy then commissioned 300,000 identical copies to be made for the Commonwealth and 170,000 for America - and sold the medals for 1 pound or 5 dollars US for "war relief of the families who had members killed by the barbarous Germans".

You could say the medal went as viral as the Copts "Mohammed smeartape" did.

Crack - Sometimes the quest for the perfect can be the greatest enemy of the good.Don't like Mormons, fine.Enough that you will vote for Obama over Romney?Fine.But if you are not voting for Obama and are just on a self-indulgent crusade to point out the Republican is badly flawed...Kindly STFU.